5-2 Updates ~ 11/03

Hello 5-2 Parents ~

I hope you've all had a chance to enjoy the sun today....it was so nice to see it after so many rainy days!!  Beautiful fall weather out there today :)

Important Dates

Halloween Party ~ A GREAT BIG THANK YOU to our room moms ~ Mrs. Orzechowski, Mrs. Thompson, and Mrs. Tader ~ for smoothly running such a wonderful celebration with the kiddos in my absence!  I am so sorry that I missed such an important day with the kiddos - unfortunately, a family emergency kept me from coming to school that day :(  Everyone reported that they had a fantastic time, despite the weather and schedule confusion.  If you took pictures that you would like me to post on the blog for all to see, please email them to me - thanks!

Fill the Nest ~ Paper bags were sent home two weeks ago for you to start filling with canned goods to donate to our community's food pantry.  We are ready to start collecting these bags, so please help us to Fill Our Nest by sending in non-perishable food items!!  Thank you so much for your generous spirit :)

Spirit Wear Pajama Day ~ Friday, November 8th - Come to school in your comfy clothes :)

Veteran's Day ~ Monday, November 11th  - NO SCHOOL!

Think Energy! Presentation ~ Tuesday, November 12th  - The National Energy Foundation will be presenting Energy conservation to our students, tying into our spring science unit on Energy.  More information will come on this presentation - watch for details.

Progress Reports Issued ~ Friday, November 22nd - Please remind your children that they can check on their grades at any time by asking for a mid-term progress report.  They should be encouraged to own their grades this year, and understand the impact of daily work has on their final grades.

Math

My math class began Unit 4 - Division Algorithms this week.  This is a quick unit where we review long division.  You can support your child at home by continuing to review math facts with them, and giving them long division problems with decimals.  I continue to discuss with your children the importance of being able to recall their mulitplication facts with automaticity - many of them are still lacking the ability to quickly recall their facts.  Please consider making flash cards a regular part of your homework time, or having them log on to play Facts Dash on a daily basis.  Not having quick recall of their facts will greatly impact their math performance going forward.

Mrs. Watanuki's Math
This week:
In sixth grade UCMP math we are finishing up a unit on pre-algebra concepts this week. Prior to our test on Halloween students studies the difference between general patterns and special cases; and aplied this knowledge to using formulas to solve problems of many types. We explored the concept of algebra being a mathematical language, for which we need to learn the rules. The concepts of using variables to represent unknown values, and evaluating expressions were presented. Students also used formulas to complete tables and graphs; both of which were used to answer questions. Additional concepts covered were spreadsheets and addition of signed numbers.Keep up the daily fact practice for those students who have not completed all timed tests at this point. Much progress was noted! This group appears to be algebraically minded!

Next week:
In sixth grade math the study of fractions is well under way. We began this unit by reviewing previously presented concepts, including: finding common denominators,equivalent fractions, identifying factors, least common denominators and greatest common factors. Students took a closer look at ordering fractions from smallest to largest. Your SRB is a great place to review concepts and find extra practice problems.

Social Studies

We wrapped up Unit 10 with an assessment this week - I was impressed with how engaged the students have been in this unit, and how well they performed on the test!  They seem to really be enjoying learning how our country was formed, and debating the differing perspectives of people who lived at that time.  I love watching how their minds expand to consider these differing viewpoints, and we spend time discussing how to apply these new ideas to their own lives when resolving conflict.  Such great learning happening for them!

We will continue our perspective discussions next week as we start Unit 11, as we look at the differing views of some specific Loyalists and Patriots who were important in the forming of our country. 

Reading

In reading this week, students focused on identifying the main idea and supporting details in non-fiction text as we read about snakes.  They are becoming more comfortable at looking at how an author chooses to organize text to help us understand the main idea.  We will continue looking at the main idea of non-fiction text next week, as we compare the text structure of Rattlers to a different type of text structure in our new text. 

Writing

We finished up our first Personal Narratives this week - look for their rubrics to come home early this week for a sign and return.  We will be continuing to respond to Personal Narrative Prompts through the next week using Learn Zillion - look for more information about this Common Core website in an email from me this week.

“If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales.” 
― Albert Einstein